Traditional commercial farming techniques are typically labor intensive, and require vast amounts of viable land to harvest a crop. At the beginning of each growing cycle or season, an operator or farmer must first prepare the field before planting either seeds or seedlings of a crop of interest. Preparation of a field typically involves plowing a field by pulling a plow behind a tractor back and forth across the entire field. Depending on the size of the field to be plowed, plowing is typically labor and time intensive and costs associated with the fuel used in the tractor can be substantial.
After plowing the field, the farmer, using commercially available seeds or seedlings, can then plant the crop by pulling a seeding machine or seeder back and forth across the field. Again, seeding or planting the field can be labor and time intensive and can have substantial costs associated with it.
A typical farm usually employs a system for irrigating the field. Further, to encourage rapid and healthy growth of the crop, the farmer may also decide to apply fertilizers (chemical or otherwise) which can be done by either traveling back and forth across the field pulling a fertilizer applicator with the tractor, or by spraying a chemical fertilizer from the air using aircraft, such as a small airplane or helicopter.
During the growing cycle of the planted crop, the farmer can also ensure that the crop is not damaged by pests or invasive weeds by spraying chemical pesticides and/or herbicides. The spraying of the chemical pesticides and/or herbicides is typically done by either travelling back and forth across the field with a chemical applicator, or can be sprayed aerially from an aircraft.
After the crop matures, harvesting is typically done by traveling back and forth across the field in harvesting equipment, such as a combine or a harvester being pulled by the tractor.
The harvested crop can then transported from the farm to processing centers to be packaged and distributed to local warehouses where they will be shipped to local supermarkets or other groceries. The transfer from the farm to local groceries or supermarkets can take upwards of 7 days or longer, depending on the geographical location of the final destination of the crop.
Typically, harvesting a crop occurs when about 10% of the crop is over mature and when about 10% is under mature. Further, about another 20% of the remaining crop spoils as a result from long distance transportation and related warehousing which reduces shelf life due to the time from harvest to retail shelf.
Traditional farming techniques require large expanses of viable farm land, large capital investments for farm machinery, large capital expenses for fuel, and large expenses for shipping. Traditional farming techniques are also at the mercy of unpredictable weather patterns, such as floods, extreme temperatures, extraordinary storms, etc., which can cause substantial damage to a potential crop.
Traditional farming techniques further require large storage or warehouse space to receive harvested crop and to re-distribute the crop to their final destinations. Up to 70% of the retail costs for vegetables at the local market can be attributed to transportation costs. Further, due to the transportation times, much of the vegetables that are sold at the local markets are not fresh and do not have their full nutritional content.
For example, lettuce farmed using traditional farming techniques produces about 200,000 heads of lettuce per acre per year. A head of lettuce produced in California, USA, requires 6 days to travel from the farm to a local market in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. It is known that just 2 days after harvest, the lettuce will lose about 50% of its nutritional value. Thus, the lettuce sold to consumers in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, will not be fresh, already being at least 6 days old and having less than about 50% of its nutritional value.
International Published Patent Application WO 2010/097562 to Bradford et. al., assigned to Valcent Product (EU) Limited, teaches a growing room, such as a greenhouse, for growing plants in a controlled environment. The growing room houses a vertical growing system for growing plants in the controlled environment. The system comprises a horizontal overhead conveyor system supporting a plurality of support assemblies therefrom and moveable therealong. Each support assembly further comprises a plurality of removable receptacles for planting crops therein. The receptacles can be stacked vertically, one above another, along each support assembly. The overhead conveyor system moves the receptacles along a horizontal path and through a single watering station for providing water and nutrients to the plants as they pass through. The system has a significant areal footprint
There is a need for a system and method of farming which reduces the overall costs associated with farming to reduce the price paid by consumers for vegetables and that increases the freshness and nutritional value of crops sold to consumers at local markets.
There is a need for a system and method of farming that increases the overall crop output with a minimum footprint as compared to the crop output from traditional methods of farming.